Rock bucket

[CMV]

Found a good deal on a slightly used skeleton rock bucket 72" locally. 3" spacing and teeth. I want it to sift large amounts of dirt w/ rocks I've pushed off the top 6" or so of an area. I'm assuming it will separate the larger rocks and leave behind dirt and smaller gravel sized pieces which is fine, but will probably take several times of scooping and moving to actually break everything up and have just rocks left in bucket. Price makes renting one (having hard time finding, but assuming I did find one to rent) not make a lot of sense - not like I'll ever run out of rocks so probably good thing to have.

But has me wondering - other than the obvious - digging and separating rocks - what else would something like that be good for? Looks like it would rip brush out decently and maybe could be back drug as a rake substitute for short distances. One-trick pony kind of like a tiller that's really only good for a certain task, or more utilitarian like a box blade?

No grapple - just getting the SSQA bucket.

 

[topbuilder]

I ran into similar situation a while back. I had a Bobcat and no one had a rock bucket to rent. Had to buy one to do a 3 day job. They work really good for what you need it for. For me, I was cleaning a lot where a house was demoed. You would be amazed how many 3" bricks fell through those 3" gaps.
It requires a lot of shaking to sift dirt out if you are going deep. Easy with Bobcat, not sure about a loader. Works really good for back blading and smoothing. I sold it a couple weeks later. The buyer put a grapple on it for a brush clearing rig. Would be perfect for that.

 

[Tomtint]

I have a rock bucket bottom for my grapple bucket.. it works well to sift dirt as I pick up brush and logs when using it.

 

[CMV]

I picked it up last night. For $600 - even if I could find one to rent, I'm ahead after just a few uses. Or can probably sell on clist and get my $$$ back out of it pretty easy since they seem to be hard to find used.

This one has fixed teeth on bucket too. Looks like it will be good for sifting what I already have and digging new ones.

My hydraulics are kind of slow - not terrible, but get on a kubota same size and you notice it. So just shaking sticky wet clay out of normal bucket sometimes takes a few tries. I think that might be an issue here because it's just real hard to "bounce" my FEL - just doesn't make a twitchy kind of movement like that.

Will get some pics when I start playing with it tonight after work.